rain

​"The rain falls on the just and on the unjust."  Except not this year.  This year the rain all seems to be falling in one or two places, and leaving the rest of us to dry up.  Our grass seems to have already gone dormant, dust is everywhere, and let's not talk about crops and livestock.  Much of California and Oregon are on fire.  In Australia they're shooting their herds rather than let them die from dehydration.  England is not getting their normal rainstorms, but Arizona is.  In the meantime Pennsylvania is about to float away, along with a few other states.  And weather people tell us it will only get worse.

Does this mean God hates us?  No, although I doubt that God is happy with what we've done to the planet.  In Genesis God tells Adam and Eve, and Noah and his family to care for the earth.  We are inheritors of that command, and yet there are islands of trash and plastic floating in our oceans, glaciers melting north and south, and water consuming islands and communities worldwide.  And yet so many just sit back and do nothing, as though the problem were going to fix itself.  The Earth is crying out.  Will we respond, or sit in silence until there's nothing left?


Creator God,  we confess that we have been more of the problem than the solution when it comes to caring for the earth.  We enjoy our relatively cushy lives.  We enjoy the lifestyle gas and plastics can give us.  We enjoy our nice, long showers.  But we are finding that the earth cannot sustain our lifestyle.  The earth cannot continually renew itself, and if it loses the ice caps we will be in all kinds of trouble.  Help us to find ways to make changes not only in our lives, but also in the politics of our nation that we as a people may take better care of the earth you have given us.  Amen